Romanticism-
Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment idea that only reason brings knowledge. (Romantics believed that there are truths that aren't accessable through reason and observation.)
~Romanticism is associated with a burst of creativity in Germany in the late 18th century. Afterwards, it spread to England and America.
~Themes: emphasis on emotion and erotic love, rejection of cold enlightenment, interest in deep spirituality and originality (reflected in new "natural" english gardens)
Some Romantics:
Germany-August Wilhelm Schlegel
England- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Wordsworth, William Blake,
France-Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas
Wider Influence (Some more romantics):
Hans Christian Anderson, Edger Allen Poe
William Constable, J.M.W Turner (both painted ruins)
I. Ideas of Change
A. Romanticism
-A movement in philosophy and the arts
-Along the same ideas as Jean-Jacques Rousseau
-Strongest in Germany and England
-Set of attitudes and aesthetic preferences rather than as a defined doctrine
-Emphasis on feeling, emotion and direct experience more than on universal principles and abstract logic
-A preoccupation with erotic love, often unrequited, and mortality
-Fascination with nature understood as an unconquerable power, raw and unpredictable
-A search for the organic relatedness of all life that went beyond the cold analysis of cause and effect
-A concern for spirituality, deep and mysterious, that tended to dismiss thinkers of the Enlightenment as shallow
0interest in the momentary, the accidental, and the uniquely colorful in human affairs
-An admiration for imagination and originality that hailed the individual genius that was capable of experiences and feelings more profound than those of ordinary mortals
-Romantic artists and writers favored flamboyant dress and presented themselves as passionate and pensive
1. Romantic Philosophy and Literature
-Conjunction with the revival of religion, the increased interest in history, and rising nationalism
-Core was philosophical
-Wrote about metaphysics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of nature
-Germany: August Wilhelm Schlegel
-England: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
-Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner was a tale of guilt, redemption and the supernatural
-Direct and emotive
-Wordsworth poems contrasted the beauty of nature with the urban corruption
-William Blake’s drawings and poems were filled with religious mystery
-Madame Anne-Louise de Stael of France stimulated philosophers, historians, and novelists
-Victor Hugo: the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables
-Alexander Dumas: Three Musketeers
-Preferred the rougher, sprawling picture of human experience in seventeenth century writers like Shakespeare and Cervantes
-Felt a kinship with the Middle Ages as an age of faith and spontaneity
2. The Wider Influence of Romanticism
-Paintings of storms and ruins evoked unseen powers, as in the landscapes of William Constable and JMW Turner in England and Caspar David Fredreich in Germany
-Romantic painters like Theodore Geriacult in France emphasized vibrant colors and swirling lines without the sharp outlines and balanced composition so important to their predecessors
-Eugene Delacroix: drawn to exotic scenes from the past and from North Africa and the Middle East
-Romantic valued power in music; thought it was akin to religion
-Conservatives found in Romantic values powerful arguments for rejecting revolution; saw stability was possible only in a society organically connected, held together as it had been in the Middle Ages by respect for custom and religion
-Radicals used Romanic themes to argue that a new era required shattering old institutional constraints
-Younger generation of English poets, led by Lord Bryon, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats, were persistent critics of church and state drawn to the promise of revolution
-Romanticism expressed preoccupation with change
Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment idea that only reason brings knowledge. (Romantics believed that there are truths that aren't accessable through reason and observation.)
~Romanticism is associated with a burst of creativity in Germany in the late 18th century. Afterwards, it spread to England and America.
~Themes: emphasis on emotion and erotic love, rejection of cold enlightenment, interest in deep spirituality and originality (reflected in new "natural" english gardens)
Some Romantics:
Germany-August Wilhelm Schlegel
England- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Wordsworth, William Blake,
France-Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas
Wider Influence (Some more romantics):
Hans Christian Anderson, Edger Allen Poe
William Constable, J.M.W Turner (both painted ruins)
I. Ideas of Change
A. Romanticism
-A movement in philosophy and the arts
-Along the same ideas as Jean-Jacques Rousseau
-Strongest in Germany and England
-Set of attitudes and aesthetic preferences rather than as a defined doctrine
-Emphasis on feeling, emotion and direct experience more than on universal principles and abstract logic
-A preoccupation with erotic love, often unrequited, and mortality
-Fascination with nature understood as an unconquerable power, raw and unpredictable
-A search for the organic relatedness of all life that went beyond the cold analysis of cause and effect
-A concern for spirituality, deep and mysterious, that tended to dismiss thinkers of the Enlightenment as shallow
0interest in the momentary, the accidental, and the uniquely colorful in human affairs
-An admiration for imagination and originality that hailed the individual genius that was capable of experiences and feelings more profound than those of ordinary mortals
-Romantic artists and writers favored flamboyant dress and presented themselves as passionate and pensive
1. Romantic Philosophy and Literature
-Conjunction with the revival of religion, the increased interest in history, and rising nationalism
-Core was philosophical
-Wrote about metaphysics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of nature
-Germany: August Wilhelm Schlegel
-England: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
-Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner was a tale of guilt, redemption and the supernatural
-Direct and emotive
-Wordsworth poems contrasted the beauty of nature with the urban corruption
-William Blake’s drawings and poems were filled with religious mystery
-Madame Anne-Louise de Stael of France stimulated philosophers, historians, and novelists
-Victor Hugo: the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables
-Alexander Dumas: Three Musketeers
-Preferred the rougher, sprawling picture of human experience in seventeenth century writers like Shakespeare and Cervantes
-Felt a kinship with the Middle Ages as an age of faith and spontaneity
2. The Wider Influence of Romanticism
-Paintings of storms and ruins evoked unseen powers, as in the landscapes of William Constable and JMW Turner in England and Caspar David Fredreich in Germany
-Romantic painters like Theodore Geriacult in France emphasized vibrant colors and swirling lines without the sharp outlines and balanced composition so important to their predecessors
-Eugene Delacroix: drawn to exotic scenes from the past and from North Africa and the Middle East
-Romantic valued power in music; thought it was akin to religion
-Conservatives found in Romantic values powerful arguments for rejecting revolution; saw stability was possible only in a society organically connected, held together as it had been in the Middle Ages by respect for custom and religion
-Radicals used Romanic themes to argue that a new era required shattering old institutional constraints
-Younger generation of English poets, led by Lord Bryon, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats, were persistent critics of church and state drawn to the promise of revolution
-Romanticism expressed preoccupation with change
B. Social thought
Conservatism
Liberalism
Utilitarianism